📖 The Quote
‘Drawings made on a touch screen are still made by hand. The app used to make them is just another tool like a brush, or an easel or the burnt wood that the prehistoric artist chewed up and softly blew around her or his hand.’ - David Hockney, A History of Pictures
✏️ The Sketch
Because this post is focused on digital drawing and we’ll work with layers, I strongly recommend using an iPad and Procreate. However, if you are old school, feel free to practice this exercise using a pen and some tracing paper. (:
Step 1. Sketch your flat in plan. If you live in a house with more than one floor, focus only on one of them.
Step 2. We are going to sketch what I call layers of domesticity.
Think about the elements within your flat that explain what the space is like, and then categorise them into different layers that could communicate the essence of this space.
I am using the following categories: Walls (edges, boundaries of spaces), Furniture, Rituals (domestic functions), and People (us making use of these spaces).
Step 3. Draw each of the categories in a different layer on your iPad. This way you can turn off and on the layers as you please.
Step 4. Have a bit of fun combining the different categories! I did the following combinations:
People + Furniture + Rituals (no Walls)
People + Rituals
Only People
People + Walls
People + Walls + Rituals (no Furniture)
Only Furniture
People + Furniture
💡 Some Thoughts
Digital drawing tools allow us to draw in layers to easily select the information we’d like to work with and communicate.
After doing this exercise, especially if you are an architect, you would have learned that you don’t need to draw all the layers of information to communicate the idea of space. When sketching design ideas digitally, the process of turning off and on the layers of the design becomes easier to manage.
Digital drawing tools can be the perfect complement to pen, paper, and a sketchbook, not a replacement for them.
Why choose between one or the other when you can use both types of tools - analog and digital? They both have lots of benefits and some limitations. Use them equally depending on your needs and desired outcome.
Digital tools are easier to carry around (you can have a whole art studio on your iPad!) and drawings can be immediately archived digitally. Apart from drawing in layers, digital drawing tools are great for editing your images later on and for building a library of assets and colour palettes you can quickly access and reuse in your next drawing.
I use digital drawing tools to quickly sketch design ideas, map out observations, and plan artistic projects that later on I will explore in an analog way.
When designing, I use Procreate on my iPad to draw and envision spaces and to produce drawings that communicate the sense of place in specific projects at work. I also use it as a digital sketchbook to collect, edit and study references and images.
Here at The Sketch Club we work a lot with drawing in digital layers as it is a great way to learn, experiment, and iterate ideas! :)
🖼 The Artist
David Hockney is one of those timeless artists who are not afraid of adopting and experimenting with new technologies. He is a big supporter of using the iPad almost as another type of brush: It is a new medium. With pluses and minuses like any medium.
He talks about the process of drawing on an iPad as understanding and selecting the layers that will make the picture: I took to it quickly, because I’d worked on computers before, and if you’ve done a lot of prints you know about working in layers: what to put down first, what second.
In his book ‘The Spring Cannot Be Cancelled’ he explains how he finds it useful to easily and quickly share these iPad sketches with friends (how cool would it be to be one of those friends receiving a daily Hockney drawing in your inbox!).
His iPad paintings are just incredible. You can read more about his approach to digital drawing and look at some of his pictures in this interview for the Royal Academy.
💫✏️
Happy sketching!
Ana
Have you tried this week’s sketch? It would be great to hear about it! Please, leave a comment and share your thoughts down below :)